Portable suction cleaner unit



Sept. 19, 1961 v. L. MARLO ET AL 3,000,037

PORTABLE SUCTION CLEANER UNIT Filed Jan. 9, 1959 3 SheetsSheet l Inverzfors Vernon. L.Marlo Louis L. Luthe l.f"iam E. Clark v. L. MARLO ET AL PORTABLE SUCTION CLEANER UNIT 3 Sheecs-Sheet 2 InVenion5 Vernon. L.Marlo Louis L.Luflze William E. Clark Sept. 19, 1961 Filed Jan. 9, 1959 United States Patent ce 3,000,037 PORTABLE SUCTION CLEANER UNIT Vemon L. Marlo, 701 S. La Grange Road, and Louis L. Luthey, 547 S. Kensington, both of La Grange, Ill., and William E. Clark, 5747 S. Ausfin, Chicago, Il].

Filet! Jan. 9, 1959, Ser. No. 785,934 2 Claims. (Cl. 15-315) This invention relates to a portable suction unit for use particularly in cleaning large-bodied enclosures, such as are found in railway passenger cars or diesel angines, by setting up strong air stream through the enclosure for carrying away dirt and debris.

While the use of air streams in the cleaning of various types of structures and enclosed equipment is not broadly new, the apparatus arrangements that have been used'heretofore for creafing the air streams have not answered the practical needs of this type of cleaning problem. In general, they include tortuous flow passages of high flow resistance. Examples of this are found in a number of massive indoor suction cleaner installations which have been proposed for railway shops for use in cleaning var-ions railway vehicles, but they are unduly expensive relative to the suction ettect produced due to the special precautions required for such arrangements.

The principal object of the present invention is to provide a low-cost multipurpose portable cleaner of small size and effective suction power.

Briefiy, this is accomplished by a suction inlet that has a flow passage extending straight through au open-centered trame that mounts a fan arranged in line Within the passage and a driving motor for the fan. The unit is provided with an open-mesh collector basket at the rear of the passage for the airborne debris while the air stream itself discharges the airbome dirt and dust against little or no resistance. Thus a maximum suction efiect is achieved With a unit of minimum size and cost. This leads to a conveniently portable unit that lends itself to outdoor use, in which case the direct discharge of dirt is of no consequence.

It will become apparent that because it is of portable construction the cleaner unit of the invention has numerous other uses. T facilitate its application to a variety of air-cleaning requirements, an extensible bellowslike adapter duct is mounted from the main frame to extend forwardly of the flow passage.

Other objects and advantages will become apparent during the course of the following description.

In the accompanying drawings forming a part of this specification and in which like numerals are employed to designate like parts throughout the same:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the suction unit of this invention and is taken looking at the rear end and side of the unit, With parts thereof broken away for convenience of illustration;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view illustrating the application of the suction unit to the vestibule door opening of a railway car;

FIG. 3 is a side-elevational view of the suction unit;

FIG. 4 is a diagrammatic view of a motor-mounting bracket for one of the flow passages;

FIG. 5 is a fragmentary sectional view illustrating one of the flow passages of the unit and is taken along the line 55 of FIG. 3; and

FIG. 6 is a fragmentary sectional view taken along the line 66 of FIG. 5.

Referring now to the drawings and particularly to FIG. 2 thereof, the portable suction cleaner unit of the inventien is designated generally at 10 and is shown applied to the vestibule door opening of a railway car 11 for setting up a suction air stream through the car to carry away dust and dirt from the interior of the car, from under the Patehtd Sept. 19, 1961 seats and radiators, and from plenum chambers and air ducts. Obviously, the unit may be similarly applied to diesel locomotives for carrying away dust and dirt from the diesel engine room and the electrical cabinet and generators.

The cleaning techniques employed in eonjunction With these suction nuits are well known and form no part of this invention. These techniques usually include local agitation of the dust and dirt either by air spraying or by broom sweeping and as the dust, dirt and other debris becomes airborne, the stream set up by the suction cleaner carries it away.

The suction unit 10 is shown mounted on a plattorm 12 that supports it at the proper elevation with respect to the door opening. It will be understood that a platform may conveniently be provided on a Wheeled dolly if desired. The shape and size of the suction unit is correlated generally With the shape and size of the usual door openings found in railway cars. Thus it is small enough to be moved about conveniently by means of. a crane or lift truck or on a wheeled dolly and yet it is large enough to do an adequate job in setting up an effective suction stream through a railway car.

In general, the suction cleaner unit consists of a generally box-shaped, open-centered main support frame 13 that has vertically spaced, parallel, annular flow passages 14 extending therethrough With side walls 15 substantially completely enclosing and defining these flow passages, a suction fan 16 for each flow passage and mounted in line therein, a driving motor 17 for each fan, art open-mesh collector basket at the rear of the flow passages and generally designated at 18, and an extensible adapter duct 19 at the front of the flow passages.

Ihe main frame 13 includes a generally horizontal rectangular base frame 20 supported from a set of depending corner legs 21, front and rear face plates, designated 22 and 23 respectively, rigid With and upstanding from the base, and a number of reinforcement bars 24 extending between and rigidly connecting the face plates in spaced apart, parallel, opposing relation.

The side wall structure 15 that defines the annular flow passages 14 has a fluted front end, as best seen at 15F in FIG. 5, and is anchored at its opposite ends to the front and rear face plates 22 and 23. The side wall structure 15 includes a tubular internal housing 15H supported from the main side wall 15 by a plurality of circumferentafly spaced, radially extending fins or ribs 15R, With the tubular housing carrying support bearings 25 and 26 at its opposite ends.

Upper and lower angle iron mounting members 27A and 27B, respectively, are fixed to the side wall structure along the length of one sidethereof and each mounting member carries laterally projecting front and rear angle iron framing members 27F and 27R, respectively, that receive a base plate 17M for mounting each motor.

The mounting plate 17M is hinged at its lower edges to the framing members, as indicated at 28L, while at its upper edges it is releasably secured to the framing members by fasteners, as indicated at 28U. A driving belt 29 connecting each motor and fan is arranged within a protective housing 30 that extends alongsde the rear edge of the base plate 17M and through a suitable clearance opening 15C in the side walls where the housing 30 divides into upper and lower sections 30S that extend across the flow path and efiectively shield the enclosed belt from the dirt and debris carried through the flow passage.

It will be noted that the motor-mounting plate is swingably adjustable to control the tensioning of the driving belt 29 as desired.

The collector basket 18 intercepts debris from each flow passage and includes a closed-wall bottom section 31 that forms a retaining receptacle for the debris and dirt that is collected in the basket 18. The open-mesh section sure plate 37 at the front of the adapter duct is snpported from fixed guide rails 38 that are secured between the front and rearface plates 22 and 23. These guide rails each carry a sleeve 39 which receives movable guide rails 40 that are rigid with the pressure plate 37.

The actuating linkage for extending and retracting the pressure plate of the duct is conveniently arranged alongside the-frame and includes a pair of links 42 and 43 pivotally interconnected at their free ends and at their other ends pivotally anchored,- respectively, to the pressure plate 37 of the adapter duct and to one of the reinforcement members of the main frame. A long-handled lever 44 is mounted on a rotatable shaftthat is keyed to and pivots the short link for controlling the amount of extension of the adapter duct;

In the preferred arrangement, the motors are preferably fed from an electrical switch and starter box 45 so that either one or both motors may be operated as desired. The box is connected to a weatherproof electrical receptacle 46 by a cable 47.

It will be noted that with this arrangement the power equipment is effectively shielded from the vapors, dirt, and debristhat is carried through the flow passages and the flow passages extend direcfly through the frame and are arranged one above the other so that a high sucfion etect may be applied through the adapter duct. The size and arrangement of the fan units conforms to the size of the usual door opening to provide a realistic balance between the size of the suction unit and the equipment that is being cleaned. The sucfion strength of the unit is enhanced by its direct flow passage arrangement, and this results in the attainment of arieective portable sction unit. A portable unit is important for convenient outdoor use, and the collector for debris prevents littering the area of use.

It will be apparent that the cleaner unit may be used in connection With painting or solventcleaning operations wherein it is necessary to draw off fumes, vapors, and fog 7 from inside the car or diesel engine room. Uninterrnpted It should be understood that the description of the preferred form of the invention is for the purpose of comply ing With section 112, Title 35, of the US. Code and that the clairns should be construed as broadly as prior art Will permit.

We claim: 7

l. A portable unitary structure for drawing air through a large-bodied enclosure of the type having an access door opening, a vertically elongated box shaped main support frame opening through opposed generally parallel vertically extending front and rear faces thereof t0 accommodate flow of air and air-borne dust and debris in a horizontal direction straight through the frame from the front face to the rear face thereof for direct discharge from the rear of the frame, said frame including a vertical face plate of elongated elevational configuration like that of an access door opening disposed along the rear face thereof and having apair of vertically spaced openings occupying a substantial area of said plate, a pair of fan blade elemonts and individual fan drive motors mounted to said frame at vertically spaced points to dispose the fan blade elements for rotation about vertically spaced horizontal axes that extend lengthwise through said frame to create a pair of generally horizontally moving flow streams through said plate openings, an extensible bellows-type adapter duct having a transverse cross-sectional shape of vertically elongated Configuration and of a size to correspond substantially to the configuration and size of the front face of the frame to extend horizontally forwardly from said front face as a common flow passage extension for the flow streams created by said pair of fan blade elements, said duct having a pressure plate framing its front end for sealing engagement against a marginal portion of the enclosure bordering the access door opening thereof, separate support arms fixed to the front end of said duct and projecting rearwardly along opposite side faces of said frame, and means including manually actuatable operat ing linkages mounted along opposite side faces of the References Citer] in the file of this patent UNI1ED STATES PATENTS Buck May 4, 1954 FOREIGN PATENTS Germany July 22, 1933 

